If you haven't read the first part of this post, do so here.
Well then....but I mean....he's just one recruiter, right? Things can't be that bad everywhere, right? Surely there are two office jobs for the two of us doing something, ANYTHING, in a city of over 4 million people, right? I was determined to give it at least another week. Back to the grind: see a job, write a cover letter, send a CV. While most of the time I heard nothing, as if my application had been sucked into a black hole, sometimes I was graced with an email reply. "Dear BLAKE MCGUIRE", they usually started, "Thank you for your recent application for Position 301268130-A. While you had a very impressive application, unfortunately you were not a close enough match for the position to gain an interview slot." Four years of college, two years of solid work experience, and I couldn't even get a damn interview, much less a job, pushing paper or answering tech support calls.
Thankfully, after another week, I got a callback on one of the jobs I applied for online. The role you were applying for has already been filled, the voice on the other end of the phone said, but I'd still like to meet you. That way if, you know, something comes up, we'll already have you in our system and we can call you then. How's 11am on Tuesday sound? Sounds great Grant, looking forward to it! Another interview, but basically the same story. Times are tough, he said, but he did see some signs of life. In fact, he'd just had a conversation with a client about a data entry type role that I might be great for. He'd keep me posted, he said. After a week, where I heard nothing other than that the client was still "considering options", I sat down to reevaluate my job search.
Maybe I had set my sights a little high, maaaybe I had been a tad unrealistic, expecting to waltz into Sydney during the middle of a worldwide economic downturn and score a well paying office job in a week or two. That's fine though, because surely, there is always restaurant or bar work, right? And anyway, maybe this would be for the best. After all, I'll probably be working in an office for the rest of my life, so a few months waiting tables, or hell, even washing dishes, wouldn't be so bad would it? Sure I didn't have much experience, but it's just waiting tables, how hard could it be? Still, not wanting to take any chances, I made a separate waiting CV, "polished it up" (lied a lot), printed out thirty copies, and took to the streets.
Are you hiring? Nope sorry mate. Any chance you guys are hiring? Not at the moment, no. Repeat ad nasueam, ad infinitum. After a few days of this, I began to notice a trend. And that trend was I was shit out of luck. I'd stopped by at least seventy places, maybe three of which were hiring, but they were all looking for someone who had been waiting tables or making coffee for years, decades, millenia even. Even Starbucks, where Steph and I had worked before coming to Oz, was only hiring permanent residents.
As I sat under the trees in Centennial Park, I reevaluated...again. So maybe finding work in Sydney just wasn't going to happen. I began thinking through my options. Number one was stick it out in Sydney and keep looking for work. A previous recruiter had told me that things always ease up a bit in the winter as the horde of backpackers make their way to Brisbane to escape the cold and rain of Sydney, and therefore my chances would improve. A second option was to use the money I had left in my travel fund to head up the East Coast myself and see the highlights of Australia, then head home early. The third option would be looking for fruit picking work in a rural area and extend my stay that way.
I quickly ruled out the first option. While Sydney is a great city, I'd already been there for six weeks, and had seen what I wanted to see. If I stuck around and kept looking for work and didn't find any, I wouldn't have enough money to do much else in Australia other than get to Melbourne and go home. The second option had potential, because at least I would get to see some of the best sights that Oz has to offer. The downside, though, was that I'd almost be guaranteed to be heading home way ahead of schedule, something I wanted to avoid.
The third option, fruit picking, had potential too. Not that history or common knowledge had been in any way helpful up to this point, but fruit picking was supposed to be readily available year round. The jobs were said to be ripe for the picking. Sorry, couldn't resist. Anyway, to add to that, I was honestly captivated by the idea of the work. While no doubt waxing romantic about the work itself, as it would surely be monotonous and backbreaking, the idea of putting in an honest days work in the hot sun with a group of other backpackers really appealed to me. Forget office work. I'd have the rest of my life to work in an office after all. I liked the idea of getting back to basics, and some good old fashioned hard work never killed anybody. Sure, the work would suck, but we'd form tight bonds with those around us, and help each other through it, as we'd all be working towards the common goal of getting the hell out of there.
As I walked back to the hostel, I had my mind made up. Fruit picking it was. Or so I thought.
To be continued, again....
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Contingencies - Part I
Back in the US, as Steph and I planned our itinerary on my couch, everything seemed so...straightforward. After enjoying ourselves in New Zealand, all we needed to do was get ourselves to Sydney with enough money left over to cover living expenses for a couple of weeks until we found work, and then everything else would fall into place. Our plan called for us to work and save for a few months in Sydney until it started to get cold, then use the money to head north in search of warmer weather in Cairns, home of the Great Barrier Reef. From there, we'd head over to Perth in WA, which was, according to our guide book, in a labor shortage. All you needed to do was register with the appropriate temp agency and you'd be sorted in no time. After a few months making good money in Perth, we'd get back on the road and end up in Melbourne for a few months, picking up casual work if we needed it, before heading back to the US.
The first hints that things might not go perfectly according to plan was in New Zealand, where we heard rumors that times were getting tight in Australia, and that people were having a hard time finding work. We also met a few people, however, who were able to find restaurant or bar work after only looking for a day. We didn't think too much of it at the time; after all, most other backpackers were 18 or 19 years old without much, if any, work experience. Surely, we thought, with college degrees and a year or two of real world experience, we would have no trouble standing out in the backpacker crowd.
And things in Sydney did actually start off quite well. Within a few days of arriving and settling into our new hostel, I picked up a work for accomodation gig. I would stay for free in exchange for two hours of my time, from 6AM to 8AM every morning, cleaning the hostel common rooms. While I wasn't crazy about the hours or the work itself, I mean, who wants to get up at 6AM every day and clean up rooms where there had been a huge party the night before, it was nice because it took care of my biggest expense, rent. A couple of days after that, I found out the hostel was looking for a room cleaner, which Steph took them up on. Again, not great work, but it meant that were staying for free.
A week after we arrived in Sydney, we decided to begin our job searches in earnest. I finished my cleaning at 8AM as usual, went to wake up Steph, and headed to the kitchen to start making breakfast. When she came in, she told me there had been a guy knocking on the room door, waking everyone up in the process, looking for me. I should go to reception she said. Oh shit, I thought, what did I do? I JUST started this cleaning job and I lost it already? Well, not really. As it turns out, one of the guys staying in the hostel is a mover, and he had hurt his back the previous day, and would I mind subbing for him that day for $17.50/hr in cash? Ten minutes later I was in the truck headed to the suburbs, and eight hours after that I was back in the hostel with $140 in my pocket. Given how easily I fell into that job, I was looking forward to starting a formal job search the next day, anticipating locking something down within a week.
The next day, polished resumes in hand and brimming with confidence, we began making calls and emailing resumes to recruiters and temp agencies. We had some initial success too; Stephanie got a call from a banking recruiter the same day she emailed him, and I got a call from an agency within 30 minutes of submitting my CV. We set up interviews, both of which went well, and we waited. "The market is a little slow right now, but give us a couple of weeks and we'll find you something" was the story we both heard. Not wanting to put all of our eggs in one basket, we kept up the job search in the meantime, routinely spending three to four hours a day doing nothing but emailing recruiters and applying for jobs online.
One morning as we sat down for breakfast, I noticed a yellow flyer taped up in the kitchen. Travelling? And want to travel for FREE? Hand out flyers two hours a day. I called the number, spoke to a guy named Dane at a company called Tribal Travel, who told me to come in and talk to him. Steph and I paid him a visit, and each signed up for a couple of shifts. The "work" entailed walking up and down the same small stretch of road in Kings Cross, ignoring the vagrants, drug addicts, hookers and bouncers (harder than it sounds in KX), and hand out flyers to fellow backpackers. In exchange for the two hours of work, we'd get $20 in travel credit, which could be redeemed for things like surfing lessons or sailing the Whitsundays. In addition to being painfully boring, it sucked because I don't like it when people try to hand me flyers when I'm walking down the street, and now I was that guy. That said, it was work, and each day I got closer to being able to do the things I wanted to do for free.
The next afternoon, after wrapping up my cleaning and my flyer shifts, I was just about to head out for another afternoon of submitting resumes when I spotted a business card on the floor of our room. Craig Danvers, Accounting Recruiter, Robert Half. I picked it up and stuck it in my wallet, thinking I might have more luck emailing someone directly instead of sending email after email to jobs@tempagencyx.com.au and wedontreadthis@nojobshere.com. Turns out I was right, as I got a call the next day, and set up an interview for two days after that. I wasn't actually sure who the agency was, but Steph said that her sister used Robert Half all the time back in the US, and that if you got an interview, they would definitely find you a job.
To be sure, this interview did look a lot more promising than the first one. There, the "interview" consisted of 10 minutes of paperwork and a 5 minute chat about my resume. The email from Craig Danver's assistant suggested that this interview would be much more involved, and it was. There was a 30 minute, detailed interview and a 70 question Excel skills test on top of the usual load of paperwork. As the interview was wrapping up, I asked him how the market was, and what he thought my chances would be. Two years ago, he began, when I first started here, I was getting people work within a day or two. Even people fresh off the boat from China were getting temp jobs, nevermind that they didn't speak any English. Things are different now, mate. I mean, we even had to lay off four of our own recruiting staff because the work just isn't there. Listen, you're a qualified guy, but honestly, the odds just aren't very good for you right now. The few jobs that are coming across my desk are going to Australian citizens. It sucks, but an Aussie will beat you out every time mate, every single time. If I were you, you know, travelling around, and I had some money in the bank, honestly, I would go sit on a beach in Thailand mate.
Part two here.
The first hints that things might not go perfectly according to plan was in New Zealand, where we heard rumors that times were getting tight in Australia, and that people were having a hard time finding work. We also met a few people, however, who were able to find restaurant or bar work after only looking for a day. We didn't think too much of it at the time; after all, most other backpackers were 18 or 19 years old without much, if any, work experience. Surely, we thought, with college degrees and a year or two of real world experience, we would have no trouble standing out in the backpacker crowd.
And things in Sydney did actually start off quite well. Within a few days of arriving and settling into our new hostel, I picked up a work for accomodation gig. I would stay for free in exchange for two hours of my time, from 6AM to 8AM every morning, cleaning the hostel common rooms. While I wasn't crazy about the hours or the work itself, I mean, who wants to get up at 6AM every day and clean up rooms where there had been a huge party the night before, it was nice because it took care of my biggest expense, rent. A couple of days after that, I found out the hostel was looking for a room cleaner, which Steph took them up on. Again, not great work, but it meant that were staying for free.
A week after we arrived in Sydney, we decided to begin our job searches in earnest. I finished my cleaning at 8AM as usual, went to wake up Steph, and headed to the kitchen to start making breakfast. When she came in, she told me there had been a guy knocking on the room door, waking everyone up in the process, looking for me. I should go to reception she said. Oh shit, I thought, what did I do? I JUST started this cleaning job and I lost it already? Well, not really. As it turns out, one of the guys staying in the hostel is a mover, and he had hurt his back the previous day, and would I mind subbing for him that day for $17.50/hr in cash? Ten minutes later I was in the truck headed to the suburbs, and eight hours after that I was back in the hostel with $140 in my pocket. Given how easily I fell into that job, I was looking forward to starting a formal job search the next day, anticipating locking something down within a week.
The next day, polished resumes in hand and brimming with confidence, we began making calls and emailing resumes to recruiters and temp agencies. We had some initial success too; Stephanie got a call from a banking recruiter the same day she emailed him, and I got a call from an agency within 30 minutes of submitting my CV. We set up interviews, both of which went well, and we waited. "The market is a little slow right now, but give us a couple of weeks and we'll find you something" was the story we both heard. Not wanting to put all of our eggs in one basket, we kept up the job search in the meantime, routinely spending three to four hours a day doing nothing but emailing recruiters and applying for jobs online.
One morning as we sat down for breakfast, I noticed a yellow flyer taped up in the kitchen. Travelling? And want to travel for FREE? Hand out flyers two hours a day. I called the number, spoke to a guy named Dane at a company called Tribal Travel, who told me to come in and talk to him. Steph and I paid him a visit, and each signed up for a couple of shifts. The "work" entailed walking up and down the same small stretch of road in Kings Cross, ignoring the vagrants, drug addicts, hookers and bouncers (harder than it sounds in KX), and hand out flyers to fellow backpackers. In exchange for the two hours of work, we'd get $20 in travel credit, which could be redeemed for things like surfing lessons or sailing the Whitsundays. In addition to being painfully boring, it sucked because I don't like it when people try to hand me flyers when I'm walking down the street, and now I was that guy. That said, it was work, and each day I got closer to being able to do the things I wanted to do for free.
The next afternoon, after wrapping up my cleaning and my flyer shifts, I was just about to head out for another afternoon of submitting resumes when I spotted a business card on the floor of our room. Craig Danvers, Accounting Recruiter, Robert Half. I picked it up and stuck it in my wallet, thinking I might have more luck emailing someone directly instead of sending email after email to jobs@tempagencyx.com.au and wedontreadthis@nojobshere.com. Turns out I was right, as I got a call the next day, and set up an interview for two days after that. I wasn't actually sure who the agency was, but Steph said that her sister used Robert Half all the time back in the US, and that if you got an interview, they would definitely find you a job.
To be sure, this interview did look a lot more promising than the first one. There, the "interview" consisted of 10 minutes of paperwork and a 5 minute chat about my resume. The email from Craig Danver's assistant suggested that this interview would be much more involved, and it was. There was a 30 minute, detailed interview and a 70 question Excel skills test on top of the usual load of paperwork. As the interview was wrapping up, I asked him how the market was, and what he thought my chances would be. Two years ago, he began, when I first started here, I was getting people work within a day or two. Even people fresh off the boat from China were getting temp jobs, nevermind that they didn't speak any English. Things are different now, mate. I mean, we even had to lay off four of our own recruiting staff because the work just isn't there. Listen, you're a qualified guy, but honestly, the odds just aren't very good for you right now. The few jobs that are coming across my desk are going to Australian citizens. It sucks, but an Aussie will beat you out every time mate, every single time. If I were you, you know, travelling around, and I had some money in the bank, honestly, I would go sit on a beach in Thailand mate.
Part two here.
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